The City Council Promotes Social Values in Youth Sports Through “Educar Entrenando”

The Tenerife Island Council, through its Sports Department, is launching “Educar Entrenando,” “an innovative experimental pilot project that aims to ensure appropriate, healthy, safe, and high-quality grassroots sports through initiatives focused on athletes, families, and clubs (management and coaching staff), the three fundamental pillars in this area, offering specialized training and technical support while incorporating a comprehensive gender perspective,” as explained by the island’s Sports Councilor, Concepción Rivero.

The first phase of this project—the diagnostic and design phase—began this July and is based on Participatory Action Research (PARI) through a psychosocial research method that relies on the participation of various stakeholders in the island’s sports sector; this work will be carried out by the Social Innovation Laboratory at the University of La Laguna.

Rivero points out that the island’s sports organizations “are a very important force for mobilization and influence, and they have a social responsibility to address issues that go beyond the realm of sports—such as those addressed by this initiative—in order to educate, promote healthy lifestyles, and prevent inappropriate behavior. Hence the importance of their involvement in a project of this magnitude.”

For her part, the island’s director of sports, Laura Castro, emphasizes that “For school-age children, participating in sports is a vital means of socialization, community building, and learning, which is why we’ve decided to use this powerful tool to instill, spread, and promote civic and social values that help build a society in which everyone, without distinction, can find a place and be respected.”

Laura Castro adds that collaboration between public administrations and private entities—such as sports federations and city councils—is particularly important in this project. “In particular, we must highlight the proposal submitted by the Dadarmo Basketball Club in Güímar, which led to the development of this initiative, and we at the Cabildo would like to express our gratitude to them for their commitment to promoting coeducation through sports.”

The areas of focus—which will be tailored to each of the target groups of this project—are: coeducation, promoting values through sports, preventing violence and harassment, inclusion and equality, addiction prevention, the fundamentals of training, and good governance.